Addressing the opening ceremony, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Tea Banh said with the expansion of dialogues, defence cooperation between ASEAN countries and partners is gradually developing, especially the building of trust and consolidation of cooperative mechanisms.

Banh added that the building of a security community and security connectivity are common goals that require efforts of all parties to realise.

He also called on ASEAN member countries and dialogue partners to firmly uphold their key and active role towards becoming an extremely important force to build regional security in a transparent and open manner, helping step up the establishment of the bloc’s political and security community by 2015.

The participants are scheduled to discuss regional security and defence issues, and reach a consensus on a draft to increase the frequency of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM+) to every two years instead of every three years at present.

As a venue to discuss security and defence issues, ADMM+ was held for the first time in 2010 with 10 member countries and dialogue partners taking part, including Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the US.